Date Posted: Thursday, March 11, 2004

Ten bombs blasted Madrid's train stations, killing 190 people.

MADRID, March 11 (MASNET & News Agencies) - At least 190 people were killed and more than 1,200 wounded in Madrid when a series of coordinated bomb blasts initially blamed on Basque separatists ripped apart four packed rush-hour commuter trains in one of Europe's worst-ever terror attacks in 15 years.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the 10 rush-hour blasts, but Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's center-right government blamed the Basque separatist group ETA, reports Reuters news agency.

"This is mass murder," said a somber Aznar following an emergency cabinet meeting, vowing to hunt down the attackers, reports the Associated Press (AP).

World leaders condemned the explosions as an assault on democracy coming just three days before Spanish general elections scheduled for Sunday, and urged a joint stand to fight terrorism, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The country was plunged into three days of mourning by the atrocity, cutting short campaigning for the elections, which were to go ahead nonetheless.

Interior Minister Angel Acebes said there was "no doubt" the ETA, which is on U.S. and E.U. lists of banned terror organizations, was behind the attack.

"It is absolutely clear that the terrorist organization ETA was seeking an attack with wide repercussions," Acebes told a news conference.

The group has been held responsible for more than 800 deaths over a nearly four-decade campaign to carve an independent Basque homeland from territory straddling northern Spain and southwest France. However, its attacks have been on a lesser scale than Thursday's bombings, with the largest toll being 21 killed in a supermarket blast in Barcelona in 1987, reports the AP.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who escaped an ETA attempt on his life in 1995, vowed: "We will not back down in the face of terrorist killings. The perpetrators will be tried and convicted."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, whose bloodiness in Europe was surpassed only by the 1988 Lockerbie bombing above Scotland that killed 270 people.

But a banned political party close to the ETA denied Basque separatists were involved in the attack, which the interior ministry said killed at least 190 people and wounded 1,247 others.

Instead, Batasuna party leader Arnaldo Otegi blamed "Arab resistance" and highlighted Spain's role in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq which has already drawn warnings of revenge attacks from al-Qaeda.

Many al-Qaeda-linked individuals also were captured in Spain or were believed to have operated from there, reports the AP.

The head of the European police organization Europol, Juergen Storbeck, also cast doubt on ETA's involvement, telling reporters in Rome that the bombings were not preceded by a warning, as in previous ETA attacks.

"It's still not clear who the perpetrators are," he said, though he added: "It could have been ETA, even if there is still no certainty."

U.S. intelligence agencies said it was too early to say who was responsible, but saw the hallmarks of both ETA and al-Qaeda, reports Reuters.

"There are characteristics of each. You have multiple attacks, multiple explosions in different locations in a short period of time which is very al-Qaeda-ish," said one U.S. official, who declined to be identified.

Spanish officials had initially brushed aside suggestions that militants angry at Spain's support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq could have planted the bombs, reports Reuters.

Police found a van with detonators and an Arabic-language tape with Quranic verses in the town of Alcala de Henares, 15 miles east of Madrid, Interior Minister Acebes said Thursday night, reports the AP.

Police found seven detonators and the tape on the front seat of the van, he told a news conference.

And a letter purporting to come from al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the train bombings, calling them strikes against "crusaders," a London-based Arabic newspaper said.

It said the brigade's "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain."

"We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," said the letter which called the attacks "Operation Death Trains." There was no way of authenticating the letter, a copy of which was faxed to Reuters' office in Dubai by the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper.

"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," the claim said.

The letter bore the signature "Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades." The newspaper received similar letters from the same brigade claiming responsibility on behalf of al-Qaeda for a November bombing of two synagogues in Turkey and the August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, reports Reuters.

Referring to Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, the statement asked: "Aznar, where is America? Who will protect you, Britain, Japan, Italy and others from us?"

Acebes, after announcing the police discovery, insisted that ETA remained the "main line of investigation" in the blasts.

Acebes said ETA tried a similar attack on Christmas Eve, placing bombs on two trains bound for a Madrid station that was not hit Thursday. He also noted the Feb. 29 police interception of a Madrid-bound van packed with more than 1,100 pounds of explosives. Authorities blamed ETA, the news agency reports.

Earlier, Acebes said 10 bombs had gone off within minutes of each other in and around three railway stations in the southeast of the capital starting at around 7:30am, a time when trains were packed with suburban commuters, which tore people, including a baby, to shreds and left pools of blood on wrecked trains, tracks and buildings.

The other blasts occurred at El Pozo station in southern Madrid and at Santa Eugenia in the southeast of the capital, reports Reuters.

Another three devices were found and set off in controlled explosions.

A Spanish anti-terrorist official speaking on condition of anonymity said the explosive in the attacks was dynamite, which was commonly used by ETA. The devices appeared to have been on timers and some may have been placed in the train wagons themselves.

Scenes of carnage followed the blasts, with emergency workers attending to critically injured passengers and hauled away bodies to a makeshift morgue.

The bodies of the dead, some with their cell phones ringing unanswered as frantic relatives tried to contact them, were carried away by rescue workers. The wounded, faces bloodied, sat on curbs as buses were pressed into service as ambulances, reports the AP.

"The coach behind mine was packed with bodies. Some people were burnt in their seats," said one passenger who survived, Antonio Villacanas.

"There were people like me going to school. It was a strange sensation. I can't explain the feeling, dead people all around," said one student at Atocha station.

Sirens cut through the streets of Madrid as many of the wounded were taken to hospitals.

Spain's King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia visited survivors in hospital. A spokesman for the royal household said the monarch would make a statement later Thursday.

Abroad, leaders expressed solidarity and sympathy for Spain, and called for a joint stand against terrorism everywhere.

U.S. President George W. Bush said he had spoken to King Juan Carlos to tell him "we weep with the families."

Bush, who has counted Aznar as one of his closest allies in his unpopular war on Iraq, said: "I appreciate so very much the Spanish government's fight against terror, their resolute stand against terrorist organizations as ETA. The United States stands with them."

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he hoped the people behind the Madrid bomb attacks would quickly be caught and brought to trial.

"The killing of innocent people cannot be justified, regardless of the cause," he said, as the U.N. Security Council prepared to pass a resolution condemning the attacks and other recent suspected terror incidents elsewhere.

In Brussels, leaders of the European Union's executive staged a silent vigil in memory of the Madrid victims. The Spanish and EU flags were lowered to half mast and the European Parliament held a minute's silence.

Arab League chief Amr Mussa led Arab countries in condemning the bomb blasts as "terrorist acts aimed at killing civilians."

In a statement, Mussa said he was "shocked" by the attacks and sent his condolences to the families of the victims.

In Lebanon, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri strongly condemned the attacks and called for drastic measures to eradicate such "criminal acts".

"The statements of denunciation and condemnation are not enough to thwart these criminal acts, which go against all moral and religious values," he said in a statement.

Hariri called on countries worldwide "to act to eradicate this phenomenon which struck, without distinction, many areas and which spread panic and killed many innocent" people.

In the Gulf, United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan condemned the bombings as a "shocking crime" in a cable of condolences to King Juan Carlos, the official WAM news agency reported.

The UAE "strongly denounced such brutal crimes and condemned it with the strongest of words," Sheikh Zayed said.

In a telephone call to his Spanish counterpart, Bahraini King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa "affirmed Bahrain's condemnation of such criminal acts which targeted innocent people," the official BNA news agency reported.

The monarch also expressed his "condolences and deep sympathy" for the victims and wounded.

Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah also sent a cable to the Spanish king and "expressed his condolences and those of the Kuwaiti people," the state KUNA news agency said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon issued a statement expressing his shock at the attack.

Sharon's spokesman added: "Terrorism is the third world war and the nations of the free world should unite against it. What happened in Madrid proves it once again."